


Sugar, Vanilla, and Royal Pine

by goodboylupin (somebetterwords)



Series: A String of Christmas Lights [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Christmas, Christmas Cookies, Christmas Tree, First Christmas, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin Raise Harry Potter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:14:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27962123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somebetterwords/pseuds/goodboylupin
Summary: Forpixelated's Holiday Prompt ListLily and James are gone, but Harry is still a tiny tot with his eyes all aglow. Remus and Sirius have to make the season bright.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Series: A String of Christmas Lights [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2047778
Comments: 3
Kudos: 66





	Sugar, Vanilla, and Royal Pine

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks again to the marvellous [Miri](https://swottypotter.tumblr.com/) for absolutely top-notch beta work.
> 
> A prequel to The Spirit of Spirits.

December of 1981, Remus and Sirius were so shell-shocked by the events of Halloween, they very nearly missed Christmas all together. It was only on one of their (at the time, exceedingly rare) visits to the closest village, the evening of the 22nd, when little Harry pointed a chubby finger at the lights strung through the barren branches of an oak tree and spoke one of his first real words in weeks, “ _Pretty_ ,” that they realized what they had almost robbed him of in the haze of their own grief.

By then, it was too late to get a decent pine tree (Sirius tried every nursery, lot, and farm in the entire United Kingdom, and the bits of France within Apparating distance) so they had to make do with a ghastly aluminum number they found in their attic. It had belonged to Remus’s parents, a gift to Hope styled after the tree in an American Christmas special she enjoyed, but even the Lupins, a couple who put a boggart on their _wedding cake_ , found the ugliness outweighed the humour of a pink tinsel tree and banished it to storage after only one season. With diligent Transfiguration, Remus and Sirius managed to make a much closer approximation to the real thing, though it still smelled unmistakably metallic.

Sirius, hoping to make up for the missing gingerbread village the Potters would begin constructing the first of every December and consume in its entirety by the new year, baked up a storm of sugar cookies with Harry to decorate the following day (and of course they enjoyed a few unfrosted and still warm out the oven). Remus, meanwhile, made a trip of his own to the nearest 24-hour petrol station, where he bought out their entire stock of pine-scented car fresheners. Upon his return home, Remus stuffed them in fillable glass baubles found in the same box from which they had unearthed the “tree.” He let Harry — up past his bedtime and on a sugar high — hang the ornaments wherever he fancied before the boy was finally tucked into bed with a spirited reading from a creased, faded copy of _The Very Merry Minotaur_.

They didn’t have a perfect Christmas that year. Things were haphazard and rushed. Remus and Sirius bought Harry entirely too many presents to make up for a slight he did not know they had committed. Feelings were still too tender to accept visits from loved ones or call upon friends themselves. The Christmas roast was too dry and the cranberry sauce came from a can. It wasn’t a perfect Christmas, but it was a good one.

For the first time since the cataclysm that had left half their family in early graves, Remus and Sirius remembered the other half was still alive, that _they_ were still alive. For the first time in months, they did more than go through the motions, had a mental checklist with more items than the necessities for keeping a tiny human alive. Music crept into their quiet home in the form of old Christmas records by Muggle crooners and choral music from the Wizarding Wireless Network. Their relationship, brought to an early end by the tensions of war, was renewed by a second first kiss under a sprig of mistletoe. Winter raged on beyond their brick walls, but inside their home came a great thaw and a blossoming like spring.

Harry, of course, was far too young to comprehend much of the deeper change undergone at the time. But he recognized that his Padfoot and Moony smiled much brighter, and it made him smile all the brighter in return. Decades later, the scent of sugar cookies and artificial pine tree would still bring him back to his very first memory — but for the occasional unfortunate dreams of a sickening green flash of light — of the Christmas his world came (back) to life.

**Author's Note:**

> Rebloggable on [Tumblr](https://goodboylupin.tumblr.com/post/636957775140945920/sugar-vanilla-and-royal-pine)


End file.
